The Virginity Entry

This was written a year and a half ago. I’m married now, so it's possible the admission stated in this entry may no longer be true. But it was at the time, and I still want to go ahead and share my thinking from way back in those days.

I am a virgin. That isn't information I share very freely, nor do I think I should. Some things are allowed to be private and probably should be private, at least for some people. But I'm me, and my blog is named what it is, so this is what you get.

My virginity has been a source of shame, and that's probably a big reason why I haven't written this before. Another reason's not to write about it is the fear of getting Tim Tebowed (not tebowing, that's entirely different) - having girls try to sleep with you simply because they know you're a virgin. I also the fear that people will look at me funny for sharing too much, but if I'm honest with myself, I know I crossed that threshold a long time ago.

Back to Tebow for a second. Someone put a million dollar bounty out on his virginity. If that happened to me, I'm not so sure I wouldn't just agree to split the money with the first girl who tried to collect. Guess that makes me a prostitute for the right price...maybe I don't give myself enough credit.

Enough foreplay, let's enter the body of this post.

Being raised a Christian, I of course, pledged to save myself until I was married and used to look down on all the rest of you, as any naïve adolescent Christian lad should. Hell, I wasn't even going to kiss until I was married (an episode of Gilmore Girls ruined that). I was into extreme purity. It was cool (to somebody, I swear—probably Mom) and easy.

What the hell was I thinking? Oh yeah, that I'd meet a girl and get married out of college. That didn't quite happen. I had a wonderful combination of pickiness, shyness, and idiocy that made that a statistical impossibility. In fact, that vast ineptitude at securing a girlfriend has been the inspiration for many a book and screenplay. The material runs deep.

No, I didn't stand a chance of getting laid until at least my mid twenties. Then I spent most of those years overcoming heartbreak because I had finally talked to a girl and that evidently wasn't enough to make her want to marry me. It wasn't until my late twenties that I was officially done with wanting to stay a virgin, but I sucked at getting myself laid, so that didn't really mean anything. Now, my quest to get to the second base continues.

Of course, by this point in life, everything gets way too epic in your head. You can't be denied a dream for decades and not also be driven to madness by your persistent failure to fulfill that dream. At least I can't. I don't know what you can do. I should stop assuming you think like me.

I got to the point where I just wanted to get it over with, cause who gives a shit what it could potentially screw up in me or someone else? It's gotta be better than obsessing over it. Maybe then I could move on and focus on feeding the poor, or reducing my use of plastic grocery bags or something really important like that.

Sadly (or fortunately), I still had pretty specific requirements for who I'd sleep with. I didn't want to take a Christian girl's virginity and mess with her head. I didn't want to have some fairly meaningless encounter with someone I just met. On top of those qualifiers, losing it to an experienced girl was quite intimidating, so I'd need to build some trust and probably explain myself before that happened. This would require at least five dates. In LA, it takes an average of three years to get five dates with one person.

I was probably most enlightened to my shame on a camping trip, a few years back. I found myself sitting in the middle of a sex stories marathon (tell-a-thon?). You know, the one where you keep one-upping each other with crazier places and ways of doing the deed. I dodged the issue as best as I could, only saying I had no great stories, but I felt like an outcast. Flashes of Steve Carell in The 40-Year-Old Virgin danced in my head. Part of me just wanted to admit the truth. Part of me wished the truth was different. I certainly could tell I wasn't proud of being a virgin.

I should be proud. I think I believe I think I believe that...I think..... Shouldn't I? But oh how it eats at me. It feels wrong to be proud of something like that. It feels judgmental. Somehow, I am judging everyone else by being a virgin. It's not even on purpose; I'd totally be up for having sex right now. But in some weird way, I am a failure and an arrogant prick, simultaneously. How dare I be so countercultural?

Somewhere near the core of my shame is a question of manliness. Is it an inability to conquer? Do I feel repulsive? Ignorant? Afraid? Incomplete? Was there an age threshold I reached where it was too late? Did it become no longer acceptable for me to be figuring things out? Do I feel like I can't choose who I want? Do I feel immature? Do I feel like I can't woo who I want? Is there something about me that's wired wrong? Does it make me incompatible? Does it make things impossible?

Can I blame my culture for the shame? I can blame myself for listening to it too much, I guess. I really hate blaming other things for my behavior or thoughts, because so many people use outside influences as justification, and one is still ultimately responsible for their own actions. However, our culture is pretty damn screwed up when it comes to sexual problems. The whole world is. You can start with the simple, obvious, more popular...let's just list things: AIDS, abortion, fatherless children, abused children, rape, human trafficking, a wealth of disorders based on image, between a fifth and a third of all women being sexually abused at some point in there lifetime.

Well shit, if I'm feeling all this pressure to have sex, probably some other people are too, and it appears a few (most?) of those people aren't really fulfilling those desires in healthy ways.

So maybe I should feel good that I haven't contributed to any of that shit. At least not directly. But what have I done by simply playing the role of someone too ashamed to admit they aren't having sex? And what should I do differently? Organize a march of virgins? Let's all band together and show the world we aren't affected by it's sexually-soaked advertising!

God, that sounds so fucking lame. I have to swear right now just to try to get some of my coolness back (it's hopeless, I know). That campaign wouldn't be true anyway. We are all affected by this constant barrage of sex (at least us weak minded people). The culture is so saturated with it, that in its blazon exposure, it has become rather subtle.

So is my life goal now to subtly fight back with hints that it might be OK to not have sex?

I can be a pioneer! I'd leave it to the next generation to bring it to a level of cool. In a few generations, monogamy and full body robes would become the face of advertising and the lifestyle and attire of action heroes.

I don't know that I like that calling. Perhaps I'll just go have sex with someone so I can get out of it. Any volunteers? I can't promise it'll be all that good. (Please don't actually volunteer) *Wendy volunteers.

I'm stupid, but I am smart enough to know I'm stupid. That helps me overcome foolish lines of thinking, eventually. It has only been recently that I have decided to further examine my thoughts on my virginity. If I don't form my own thoughts, I am going to regurgitate someone else's, and that can be extremely stupid. Regurgitating the wrong thoughts, or applying them inappropriately, skews comparisons. Making comparisons to the wrong standards can lead to inappropriate shame. Perhaps that shame will lead to inappropriate actions. Ultimately, I will go straight to hell.

No, I'll go skewed to hell. You can't go straight to hell. You are going there because you are skewed. That is my insight of the day, straight to hell is a misnomer.

This shame removing will require more thought, or more conviction or something. But admitting it is always the first step. Ooo, is that a regurgitated maxim I haven't thought out? No, I'm pretty confident I've found some benefit from this honesty thing.

Sorry everyone who found this awkward or didn't want to read about this aspect of my life. You probably shouldn't have. Sorry also for not putting this disclaimer at the beginning.

Wendy would like me to share some thoughts on this shame thing now that I'm married. But I'll actually address where it went before I was married. I don't know how to discuss the after married part without sharing details of sex itself. I'm honest and open, but I don't think I'll ever be that open publicly. And besides, the shame was gone before we ever had sex.

I don't know that there was a moment where it was just gone, but I do know that it didn't exist around anyone I shared the truth with. In front of any friend or acquaintance that I avoided saying anything about my history, especially if they talked about sex, I felt shame. But with others, including Wendy, where I told her up front that I was writing this blog post in fact, the shame immediately disappeared. She didn't reject me for it. And in fact, sharing such things created strong emotional bond very quickly, which is amazing to have with someone you can trust.

I have never been rejected or betrayed for being honest with the wrong person. This might be why I'm more apt to share things. I've only really seen benefits. So, I honestly don't know if being honest is a good move even if it leads to disastrous consequences do to the evil hearts of some others. I guess I have an answer principally, and really, it probably depends on circumstances, but I'll just say I'm very thankful I haven't faced that.